Saturday, July 10, 2010

Seduced by a foggy garden

After spending yesterday in the yard and garden I purposed in my heart to steer clear of it today until after a meeting that I had scheduled for this morning at ten. However, when I walked out on the front porch to have my bagel and tea (it's too hot for coffee....yes Fran, it is) I was struck by the gorgeous dense fog that had settled in the yard and gardens. We were immersed in fog! It was so thick I could actually see the water droplets sinking slowly downward. Does that make it rain rather than fog??? I was standing inside a cloud that coated every line of every spider web and silvered them in the light of the new day. It took my breath away.
My inner, more rational, voice screamed at me to stay on the porch (I had already fixed my hair and didn't really want to have to begin again before I left for the meeting) but I ignored it (note: this is always dangerous) and stepped down onto the cool garden paths. The tall grasses reached out and brushed me with watery leaves, the wisteria put me into a strangle hold and I had to snip my way through multiple webs in order to get to the tomatoes that shone through the mist.
I suppose it might have been possible to simply reach inside the cages and pluck a couple of ripe tomatoes and then retreat to the house. It could have happened; it simply did not. I felt 'called' to pull up the crabgrass that was growing inside the cages (that's just bad manners, I don't care who you are!) and then I engaged in a round of fisticuffs with the morning glory vine that was attempting to take all three rows of the green beans hostage. No! No! Not on my watch will the beans be overtaken by the bullies! (Did I mention that at this juncture I was still in my nightgown and barefoot with my unfinished glass of tea sitting tilted against a clump of mulch on the ground.
I won the day with the Morning Glories (but there will be others), dumped out the tea and filled it with a few perfect tomatoes which I plan to have in a salad for supper. The vine of the grape tomato was running completely amuck and had to be slapped around a bit (read: several spindly arms ripped off and tossed on the compost pile). I did stop and smell the bloom on my retirement rose (not its name by the way) which seems to be quietly delighted to have joined the circus that is my garden.
At about that time I heard Danny calling to me from the front yard. I gave him a wild wave, over the tops of the five foot tall grasses and he burst out laughing. After fighting my way through the wisteria (again), I asked him what was so funny. He responded that he wished he knew where the camera was hiding because the scene before him would make a priceless picture that he wanted to frame and hang on the wall for all time.
There I stood, in my blue nightgown (and nothing else) with my hands muddy from weeding, surrounded by a jungle of exuberant greenness. In my hand was a glass full of red tomatoes (with extras in the crooks of elbows) and my feet and legs wet and brown with dirt that I had shaken from the weed clumps. Add to that image a bright smile and hair that was wet and full of silver spider webs and you get the idea.
Yes, I am in love with the vibrant Spirit that sings in my gardens. I am so deeply happy that Danny understands and appreciates this part of me.

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What I am trying to do here.

Stories of life lived on the mixed grass prairie in Northwest Oklahoma, the lessons gleaned from creation and news of family and friends. There may be poems, if you're lucky. Sometimes I can be a bit preachy, not always, but if I feel it necessary.